Home Education Encouragement

Just a little post today to encourage anyone on the fence about their ability to home educate their child or whether or not is doing so-called, “enough”. If you doubt your child will be successful, please do not. If you hear people tell you that your child won’t be able to get into college, please do not listen. If others tell you that you’re child will be too sheltered and not be able to make it in society, tune them out. The proof is in the pudding as they say.

A home educated child has just as much opportunity as a public or private schooled student. My now 21 year old who was educated at home by me, a mom who never went to college and graduated from a private Christian school in 1995, not only went to college but is nearly completed now with almost a 4.0 GPA. He is motivated and studies hard and also maintains a part time job. He does still live at home but his life may soon change.

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Graduation 2025

Last month (May) my last child completed her home education and had her final law required evaluation. This has been a case of mixed emotions for me. I’ve enjoyed the opportunity to facilitate education of my children at home using the materials we wanted to use and what they wanted to study. I’ve enjoyed the freedom we had to shape our days any way we wanted and allowed them to explore topics they were interested in, all the while checking off the requirements in the law text. I got to watch my children grow and teach them my values and from our Christian worldview. I never minded the sacrifice of my time or money to do it. It was way beyond worth it to keep them out of the public school system. My children never suffered academically or socially. But now that chapter is over, so what’s next for this former homeschool mom? I just don’t know. Not yet. I wish in some respects that I was qualified to be an evaluator for other home educating families, but I wouldn’t meet the law requirements. I want to keep the resources here on my blog for however long they are relevant for anyone needing help or forms to print out. But, I also want to transition my blog into something more relevant to where I’m at right now. I have other blogs floating around the internet that I just am not going to resurrect and not ready to let this one go. For now, nothing is going to change but posts may cease until I decide on a direction to go.

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The final year

After 7 years of homeschooling my children I am down to my last 7 months and my remaining child will be finished with her 8th school year at home and officially graduated. She began learning at home at the beginning of her 5th grade school year while her brother began at the beginning of his 7th grade school year and has been attending college since last fall. It’s a strange place to be in and if you’re a veteran home education parent you probably understand. This has been a journey and its been wonderful. There is some relief in being done as well as…what now? I’m excited and maybe a bit sad at the same time. Even brick and mortar school parents feel this way, except my job for 7 years has been that of home educator, supervisor, instructor, counselor, administrator, etc. My job is ending. My children aren’t leaving the nest yet, and that will be a whole other experience. My son attends a somewhat local school so he’s able to live at home to help him save money. My daughter is still undecided what she wants to do post graduation, and that’s okay. Right now she is thinking of working for now and decide on school or whatever later and not rush in to anything. Even her brother ended up changing his mind in college by changing his major (completely normal).

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True or False

Homeschool Logo

I’ve made many posts at this point on what is required to educate your children at home in the state of Pennsylvania according to the law passed by the PA General Assembly and signed by Gov. Casey in 1988 (Act 169-1988) with is various changes through the years (2014, 2019, and 2023). Unfortunately, there are still a number of people who refuse to actually read the law and instead just keep passing false information around to other parents. I recently covered many of the questions I see from new parents with factual answers, but today I want to address a bit more. I am following a number of state homeschool groups and the number of times I see the same questions is staggering. What’s worse are the wrong answers. Without further ado: (remember these are in ADDITION to questions I already answered for you)

True or False :

  • Someone told me that you must complete 80% of curriculum in order for it to count or for your year to be complete. FALSE I don’t know where this person got this information but it’s incorrect. The law never mentions curriculum. Curriculum isn’t required to homeschool. Curriculum usually is referring to text books and text books are not required. There are required courses to complete within grade levels, but how you accomplish that is up to you. I don’t understand this term of “counts” in the first place. If your child learned something, would that not “count”? Stop thinking like a public school. Your year is complete when you have completed the required number of days or hours if you choose to count those instead, it doesn’t matter how much workbook or textbook work you did.
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Seven years complete

As the title of this post indicates, this was my 7th school year of home educating my children. My oldest graduated last school year, his 6th and final year of education at home. He has now completed his 1st year of college where he has done very well. My youngest is completing her 7th year of home education, which is her 11th grade year by public school standards. One more year to go. Her 12th grade year is going to allow her pretty much customization in her studies. She needs to only do English and another history course to fulfill the laws graduation requirements. She is planning on taking another year of Science because she likes it. She does not yet know what she will do post graduation. It is something we are still figuring out. Not all kids have this figured out by 12th grade or even at graduation. It’s okay. If they don’t know, they shouldn’t rush into anything or randomly pick something. Getting a job that gives as many hours as possible is not a bad thing, it doesn’t matter what the job is, even that means having 2 part time jobs if you can’t find one that provides enough. Work experience is never a bad thing. One of the issues is she has several interests. She would rather do something creative, but worried about how that pays the bills. This is always the case with creative persons who enjoy artistic endeavors. Many, like myself, end up choosing to get into a different field solely because they don’t think they can ever earn money with their artistry. I won’t sugar coat it, there is a real possibility of it being difficult, not impossible, but more challenging.

So, onto what I liked and didn’t like this 7th year, my daughters 11th grade year.

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